Cynosure Confidential
by TobyKikami
Summary: A collection of short fics, vignettes, and drabbles wherein various gods deal with their worshippers, each other, and themselves. Ranges from the dark to the absurd. The latest: Vhaeraun, Mask, and Zinzerena, "Date from the Demonweb."
1. Shevarash, Mielikki: Technicality

Well, here's the first of another "linked" series of sorts, though this one is far more of a catch-all than Traditional Gender Roles was - I'd rather not clutter up the listing with a flood of drabbles etcetera. Characters, spoilers, warnings, and genre vary by fic.

The Forgotten Realms aren't mine, naturally.

* * *

**Technicality**

(Somewhat twisted humor, no spoilers, offscreen death)

_Shevarash has moderated his hatred toward Eilistraee and the good-aligned drow who worship the Dark Maiden. He does not kill them out of hand, but still dislikes them thoroughly. _

-On Shevarash, _Demihuman Deities_

* * *

Mielikki gazed upon the Material Plane, through the cloud cover and forest canopy, to the body. The soul was long gone, and one of her servitors would pick it up in the Fugue Plane.

This sort of thing _did_ happen to mortals, of course, but rarely in quite this manner.

She looked to the unsmiling elf beside her and pointed. "Would you mind explaining why your priest put an arrow through my ranger's eye?"

Her ranger's other eye remained open and glazed. It was lavender, or perhaps violet.

Shevarash shrugged, expression bland. "He wasn't one of Eilistraee's, was he?"


	2. Vhaeraun: The King is Dead

**The King is Dead, Long Live the King**

(Unreliable narration, semi-spoilers for War of the Spider Queen)

* * *

Vhaeraun always knew he was meant to be a prince. He knew the promise the title held was his right, his birthright.

Nobody _called _him that, of course, excepting Erevan's japes, no more than they called his father a king. That was just as well. They likely never would have delivered on that promise, given immortality and Eilistraee. Even if he was considered, should something befall his father he'd probably be stuck with her all the same. That was the way Corellon Larethian's mind ran, how all their minds ran. Twins ruling jointly - one female and one male, emulating the androgyny of their late lamented father - how poetically twee. They'd eat it up.

He didn't _claim_ that, of course. Not past that brief age where such things were indulged. The word never passed his lips even speaking to his mother at her loom, as she set about weaving destiny.

Nor did it pass his lips after the snag in her weaving was their undoing. Naming himself king then would be too blatant, would invite mockery that would not have been entirely ill-deserved, and naming himself prince was a reminder that there were other gods still sitting pretty in the position he ought to occupy.

In its stead, he decided to be a lord. That still had a proper ring to it.

* * *

In the Year of Wild Magic, in the month of rotting, he stands in front of the stone face and takes up Nightshadow.

He has whispered _our right, our birthright _to a thousand thousand thousand drow in cities fallen and cities about to fall and cities that _will _fall if he's got any say. All the while he has kept his mouth closed about his personal right, held the words back in his throat and felt them wilt.

Nightshadow cracks against the stone once twice three times.

They would not understand how the blood of Corellon and once-Araushnee, scorned when apart, would promise something great when mingled just so. Sometimes he doesn't quite understand, himself.

Four five six times.

When Araushnee fell she lost her grip on sanity and destiny, but he kept his. There were times he almost forgot the latter, but there it is - here it is.

He loses count of the blows.

He will fulfill the promise himself, for himself.

Vhaeraun knows this.


	3. Lliira and Chlanna: Dance Upon the Air

**With Nimble Feet to Dance Upon the Air**

(Somewhat dark, no spoilers, canonical femslash, torture. Title shamelessly yanked from a stanza of _Ballad of Reading Gaol_)

_Glancing in another direction, Helm saw Llira (sic), Goddess of Joy, wearing a slightly worried expression, wringing her hands without thought, then catching herself and staring down at her hands in horror. _

- _The Avatar Trilogy: Shadowdale_, by Scott Ciencin

_The murder of Selgaunt's High Revelmistress Chlanna Asjros (whom Lliira had taken as a lover while in mortal form during the Time of Troubles) by forces of a local cult of Loviatar has deeply affected the Joybringer. A militant order known as the scarlet mummers now tours Faerun with her support, dispatching agents of the Maiden of Pain by means of an elaborate and deadly dance utilizing the mummers' blade boots. _

- On Lliira, _Faiths and Pantheons_

* * *

Lliira wishes she were sure that this all started when she wrung her hands. Not that she _wants _to be sure, particularly, because then it would mean she could have saved Chlanna if she'd only paid better attention and hadn't let it in. But being sure would be better than having just this niggling notion of it, worming around behind her eyes.

Break something once, and it's that much easier to break again. Sooner or later it shatters at a tap.

They were all a little bit crazy then. Ilmater - _Ilmater!_ - had capered laughing beside her, while she stood there like a hand-wringing shrubbery and Ao passed sentence on them all. It actually got better after, though magic went mad and there was talk of fallen gods elsewhere - there was Waukeen to make merry with, to start, and after Waukeen there was Chlanna.

* * *

When the Troubles were ended Lliira gave Chlanna Asjros a rose with the thorns pulled off, a crown of daisies, and the ability to dance on air. Chlanna kissed her for it and insisted they dance together. For that she chose a great room with a high ceiling, giving them space to indulge themselves with their feet close to a man's height off the floor. In truth Chlanna couldn't quite manage that height with the gift alone, but Lliira gladly lent her a bit more for the occasion. Then more, more, more, until the tops of their heads brushed the ceiling on the high points of their leaps.

Chlanna Asjros danced on air to the end, because the followers of Loviatar hung her from the chandelier in the center of that room first to thrash and then to twitch and all the while to watch her blood drip away, too quickly for their liking and too slowly for hers.

Chlanna had ordered special spells for that chandelier, transmuting the flames of the candles set in it into varicolored six-pointed stars. They held some of those stars to her face, to her long hair. They punctured her limbs like Lliira had punctured the stems of the daisies to weave them together. They used scourges with thorns on. They cut off what hair of hers they hadn't burnt off and the scatterings of it on the floor mingled with her blood were something else she could look at while she begged Lliira for an end.

When she arrived in Brightwater, she acted as though Lliira had granted her that.

* * *

Lliira hears someone wailing and she hurries to find them. She can't - for a heartbeat she thinks _Chlanna_, but she remembers Chlanna is happy now. Why isn't this one happy too?

She doesn't _have _to find them. She'll just shout, and her voice can surely reach them if theirs can reach her. She means to call out _don't worry, it's likely nothing worth the trouble, carry yourself away on the Elysian Rigadoon, let go of it and be happy again. _She means to open her mouth to say all that but it's already open and Lliira figures out, then, who it is wailing.

She brushes a hand against her cheek then, and thinks that she _can't _be so happy that she's crying.

She's acting as though somebody died. Somebody _is_ dead, but it's not as though that should be such a grievous thing for her. They didn't trap Chlanna's soul. They didn't keep her in an inert body, petrified or miles beneath the Underdark, unable to flee to the Fugue Plane.

She thinks Chlanna should be happy here and Chlanna _is _happy. She knows she couldn't have been happy watching Chlanna _not _be happy. It's the best thing for both of them that Chlanna doesn't remember the room with the high ceiling, the chandelier with the star-shaped flames.

Lliira tried to be selective, once she saw the problem. She wiped away everything she could find of the hanging, the scourges, the cut hair and drops of blood scattered on the polished floor. Then she brought up the time when they danced in that room, and Chlanna nodded and laughed and spoke fondly of it, but there was still that shadow creeping in behind her eyes. It was all too tangled up.

So then Lliira tried to work with a blank slate. And Chlanna kisses her and Chlanna smiles but Lliira can never ever ask her _remember when_? Because who knows what she might remember for her goddess?

She can't figure out how she could have Chlanna and she could have lost her all the same.

* * *

Lliira moves because it's something to do, spinning and kicking high. She imagines knives affixed to her feet, slicing and slicing and slicing, and takes it from there.

A rose will do nicely, she thinks. Just one - Chlanna was always one for the understated. And it will be red, for the symbolic significance. She conjures one and wanders off, humming, to begin.

She does not dance on air today. The blades that grow from her bare feet pass through grass and dirt without picking up any. They are colored red as the rose, but glisten like blood. There is no real blood on them. Not yet.

She smiles, of course. A goddess of joy must not wring her hands. A goddess of happiness must smile.


	4. Vhaeraun, Leira: Mirror Images

****

Mirror Images

(General weirdness, spoilers for _Sacrifice of the Widow_)

__

When the Yuir elves began to falter in a series of battles with drow armies, Zandilar attempted to seduce the dark elven deity Vhaeraun either to gain information or elicit his assistance in battling the forces of Lolth. However, the dark elven lord betrayed Zandilar and imprisoned her avatar…

-On Zandilar the Dancer, _Powers and Pantheons_

"Leira, Lady of Mists, Mother of All Illusion, the Guardian of Deception, the Mistshadow. Some say she died in the Time of Troubles, killed by Cyric, betrayed by Mask. Some say she loved Mask and loves him still. Some say gods can die. Some say gods can be born. Some say gods can live."

-Shaella of Leira, _Baldur's Gate_

* * *

Mist swirled before Vhaeraun's eyes. The slender, blue-skinned arm draped over his shoulder was adorned with equally delicate bangles of amber and copper. Naturally, it ended in a hand, in long fingers that he just knewwere almost as deft as his own. The fingers stroked the area around his collarbone in a pattern he recognized from a time that had been quite long ago even for a god.

He pulled away and spun back. The arm continued to reach out of the mist, which began to coalesce around its far end. It too took on a blue tint, smoothed out into shoulder and throat.

"Oh, that's very funny. Watch me laughing." He _did _laugh now. "Was I meant to collapse and repent before your phantom, sister?"

Curve and point of the right ear, then the left. A second shoulder, a second arm.

"At least it's a relatively creative enchantment - I don't expect, say, kytons or Kiaransalee would consider it so." He affected a melodramatic pitch. "'Oh, my dear Zandilar. I'm so very sorry I ever laid a hand on you.'" Truly, he was. At the very least he regretted that he didn't kill her faster afterward, before it quickened. "Will that do?"

The familiar body looked complete, though swathed in what had given it shape. The head had only the face left to fill - the misty oval where it should be seemed almost a cutout. At certain moments he thought he could glimpse suggestions of features - an closed eye with a fringe of lashes, a half-formed brow.

Was this an automatic defense of Eilistraee's realm, or did she conduct it herself? If the latter she was certainly on to him, and if the former she might well be by now -

The music began then, and he startled in spite of himself. It wasn't his sister's sort, or Zandilar's; not music to be danced to. It teetered on the edge of chiming cacophony. Vhaeraun backed away from the faceless thing, glancing around. He could pull over his cloak and use the shadow that would make, if there was just another one to shift to…

It looked almost a puddle, five paces to the left. A lot of good it would do him to move five paces. On second glance, it looked _much_ too much like a puddle. Too dark. Too deep. And what would cast such a shadow?

She giggled now - "Ah, dear Vhaeraun" - in tune with what tune there was in the music. The shadow-that-couldn't-be evaporated like a puddle, and when he looked back she had a mouth to laugh with. There was no longer mist in the oval, which contained all the appropriate features, but it still obviously didn't go with the head. The skin was too pale and certainly not blue. The eyes were large and dark as the false shadow. "I'm so glad you're here. Weren't you looking for a shadow? _He _wouldn't have done that."

"_Who_ wouldn't have done?" The mist and the chiming and the eyes fit together. "Sehanine. That's a lovely puppet, to be sure, but you've the wrong god for it." It had to be Sehanine Moonbow's creation, an illusion of her dead ally. It couldn't very well be that ascended mortal, the self-proclaimed Prince of Lies, even if he _was _the one to puppet Leira's corpse after the Time of Troubles. After all, he couldn't very well be _here_.

"Lovely? Oh, I'm not flattered at _all_. I don't know you. You're Mask's little friend."

She even had down the pattern Leira favored when she was as close to honest as a goddess of liars ever could have been, the simple mirrored statements that had to be reversed to glean what truth they might hold. He was millennia older than Leira (as far as he knew) and Mask was not his friend.

"You don't even talk the way he does," she said. "That wasn't boring at all, the way he was so loath to be creative, always shuffling around what he started with." She leaned forward, cupped a hand around her mouth, and whispered, "I carried his child. Did you know that?"

"I didn't. You're overextending your Zandilar analogy."

She clapped. "Sehanine, you said? Oh yes, she's behind this, and your sister, and Mask, and Mystra. It's all a show of theirs. Out of the mist you'll see them with the ends of the puppet strings in their hands. _Are _you truly sorry you did that to her? Of course. You're not like him and his shuffling at _all_."

And the trick with Leira had been that not only did even this simple game of hers have to be mirrored with care, but there was no guarantee whatsoever that she'd stick to the game. Sometimes she would tell the truth after all, throwing it out into one's path like a stumbling block. Like many of the gods, Vhaeraun had found dealing with her overly irksome; peeling away the layered illusions was not often if at all worth the trouble. Mask thought that was very funny and wouldn't say why.

"You don't want to hear the answers," she said. "You see, I am alive. I am dead. Mask saved me and he betrayed me, and he was right sometimes that a bit of shuffling works best. I'm a voice in that young one's head and I'm a spirit Mask hid in his shoe and I'm a spirit let loose when a sword broke. I'm a spirit let loose when _Mask _broke. I've a twin sister and we never got on, what a surprise _that _was, and I hated her and loved her and I loved Mask and he came along with the young one to kill me and I tried to kill my sister, only she had warning…"

So. It was out. So much for _that _hope. He moved his fingers, calling on his own power for a gate back to Ellaniath. The magic dissipated in his hand.

Her breath moved against his face. "I'm dead and I'm alive and I'm a trickle of mist in a dark corner of the Supreme Throne… plenty to choose from there…"

Vhaeraun began to run.

"You weren't at all like Mask," she called after him, "and you aren't at _all _like me."

He tried making a gate again. He couldn't not try.

"Run. Run like a rat in a trap." He had to tell himself that the vicious edge to her voice now had no more chance of being true than anything else about Leira. "Such a great big trap, but you shan't lack for company."

There had been another gate before this, a High Magic gate called up by his own, and he had crowed awhile over that before going through it. He'd gone into a forest - his sister's forest - and… what? Then what?

Softer now, sweeter, sweet as Zandilar's voice when she still pretended she wanted it, wanted _him_, but he could hear it through the mist loud as a shout. "You know where to find me."


	5. Five Ways Cyric Never Found Out

**Five Ways Cyric Never Found Out**

(Seriously unreliable narration)

_Then, (Cyric) remembered that he knew the mage's true name, Ariel Manx. He smiled weakly and wondered if that would have any power over Midnight now that she was a goddess. _

_-The Avatar Trilogy: Waterdeep, _by Troy Denning

* * *

She told Kelemvor her true name as the payment he required, and her voice was not quite as low as it should have been; she should have at least taken Adon's presence into account. Adon did not hear, or else kept his mouth shut, but Cyric did the first and didn't do the second.

"I only know one secret of yours, Ariel," he told her after. "I'd forget it if I could," he lied, and followed that with a truth to counteract unwanted implications that he found it so loathsome. "Although, it _is _a beautiful name." _And true to her in more than one sense. _

The red flecks in her eyes seemed to flash. "Secrets are always safe between friends."

"Is that what we are, friends?"

She nodded.

"How interesting. Friends." _Yes, yes, it is, if you want to call it that. Remember love is a lie. Be satisfied. _But he wasn't and he said, "He doesn't deserve you, you know." He hadn't heard just her true name - he'd heard what had led up to it, what had followed it. He heard her argue with Kelemvor and heard Kelemvor argue technicality. "You'd never have to pay _me. _He isn't worth it. Ariel."

She agreed…

* * *

She told him her true name in a whisper as they lay beside each other, her unbraided hair strewn about in dark ribbons. Precisely midnight - how he knew that he couldn't say, but it was right and fitting. _Midnight _was almost as lovely as _Ariel…_

* * *

He discovered her true name after painstaking research and communication with planar creatures and a journey to the Fugue Plane.

(What? No she never went there. You heard that but you heard wrong. Just like the harlot, taking the credit. _He _rang the bell in Tantras and _he _killed Myrkul. And of _course _he could do that. No he did not have any priestly help, nor wizardly. Misfires? What a ridiculous notion)

He knew a time would come when he would have to use every such weapon at his disposal, and hopefully when it came he wouldn't find himself short.

* * *

He knew her true name the moment he laid eyes on her, and he knew too that one day she would betray him, but he kept his peace and he waited for her true colors to show.

* * *

The _True Life of Cyric _was quite thin without the blank pages, certainly not enough to take anyone's full measure. It gave him a skeleton and he rebuilt his mind around it, sorting through and discarding figments and absurd dross. Take this one - such a potential hold and he'd never used it? Somewhere in there he had to have known that knowledge was false.

"Ariel Manx," he muttered. Fleetingly, _That's a beautiful name. _


	6. Red Knight and Selvetarm: Sava

**Grandmaster of the Sava Board**

(Set shortly before _Sacrifice of the Widow_, no actual spoilers, plenty of blatant foreshadowing or would you call it hindshadowing?)

_Lady of Strategy, Grandmaster of the Lanceboard_

-Titles of the Red Knight, _Faiths and Pantheons_

_The Champion of Lolth harbors a deep hatred for all living things, including his dominating mistress, and the only beauty he can appreciate is a well-honed and deadly fighting style. _

-On Selvetarm, _Faiths and Pantheons_

_Once per game, each player could forgo his normal move to throw the _sava _dice. If the spider came up on each, he could move one of his opponent's pieces to eliminate any man of its own color within its normal reach, a rule that acknowledged the dark elves' propensity for doing down their kin even in the face of a serious external threat. _

-_War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, _by Richard Lee Byers

* * *

The dice clattered to a stop. As Selvetarm crowed and used one of Red Knight's warriors to knock her last priestess from the board, Red Knight felt an instinctive urge to stop him. But this was his game, and such were its rules, so instead she caught the priestess as it spun over the edge and put it in line with her other casualties. She glanced at the dice herself, silently calculating the probability of rolling double spiders. However, probabilities often seemed to warp in such situations. Divine resonance with arachnids could not be ruled out.

He grinned and announced "Your move," as though she needed to be reminded.

If this game were some sort of analogy to the Material Plane, she'd be worried at this point; the amount of her pieces alongside the board left few for use in future. But this was self-contained, with the resources on both sides renewed at the start of each match, which gave her a fair margin.

"I admit, this does seem an accurate representation of _your_ race's brand of warfare." She picked up the same warrior and took one of Selvetarm's wizards. Treason happened, certainly, even if it wasn't reproducible on a lanceboard, but if she were designing it into a game the traitor piece would leave play afterward - or failing that, be swapped out for the appropriate color. Now was not the best time to propose such a modification.

One of her slave pieces was next to go. He'd chosen his move quickly and kept grinning as he said, "I understand. I'm about to win, after all."

He hadn't been so sure about that when Red Knight put forth her counter-challenge, one match of strategy for one match of combat, both on neutral ground. It showed how much he wanted that combat that he'd agreed at all, saying "_Sava_, then," with the air of someone grabbing at the very ends of straws. Now he almost lounged, close to it as the unwieldy-looking form could permit, hand ghosting over the board and eyes ghosting over her.

"Did Garagos happen to put you up to this?"

"You've never _met _him, have you?"

She moved her hand beneath his. Slave took warrior. "I haven't the pleasure as of yet." Tempus had told her enough.

"You're not missing much in the way of pleasure." Warrior took slave. "If he wanted it, he'd do it himself. He'd have split the board in half by now even if he'd agreed."

She continued to take his measure in the time she had, extrapolating how he would likely behave with weapons in his hands and without the board interposed between them. Small wonder that he was "allies" with such a one; the true wonder was that neither was yet dead of it. She was aware that while Garagos was indiscriminately berserk he scorned treachery and even ambush, and he wasn't one to talk out disagreements. "If he should find out, do you think you will prevail?"

To his credit, Selvetarm immediately grasped her question. "It doesn't matter."

She wondered if he thought Garagos would never catch on, or if he thought the goddess he served would protect him. She leaned toward the former.

Some time later, as she considered the board, he said, "Do you spend all your time tinkering with pieces? When do you _fight_?"

"When needs must."

"Such a waste." She misliked how he looked at her. He wasn't contemptuous about it. Contempt she would have analyzed easily.

She slid a wizard forward. Not much longer now. "Such discretion, more like."

He lowered his eyes to the board and sent a priestess against the wizard, but Red Knight thought he was still peering up. "Since when was he discreet?"

It came in useful to keep up on the speculations of the Material Plane, so she knew some theologians argued that her discretion as opposed to the lack thereof of Tempus - or, for that matter, Garagos - was part of the point of her existence. So she knew also her imprecision when she said, "He has nothing to do with it." As a statement, it worked fairly well even if it turned out that he hadn't meant Tempus.

"Then what _has _he got to do with you? Or Torm the shiny, for that matter. I suppose all they do is _encourage_." He said _encourage _as though it meant _engage in unspeakable activities, possibly involving horses. _"Show you their _way_." Possibly, also, with dogs. "Play you like a puppet."

"There's more possible than _your _experience would mark out," she informed him. "He's a father to me, if you can conceive of that."

She noted the utterly nonplussed expression he wore for several heartbeats. "If you aren't going to move-"

"I am." She sent forth a slave, taking the priestess and setting her trap in true motion. She wondered if he'd see it now.

From the way he pulled back, blinking, it seemed he had. He hissed something, venom literally dripping from his jaws.

"Will you forfeit?"

Selvetarm glared at her and rammed her slave with his.

Cleanup was short, though at the end of it Red Knight was twice grateful that she wouldn't be actually left to rebuild from her handful. "At least it was a bargain," she said, standing, "not a wager."

He leapt up and stepped clear of the board, weapons ready, and she supposed she had to credit him for not snapping and leaping forward. A fierce smile was back on his face, and he seemed almost alight. "Another word and I'll kill you, Cynosure or not."

It was empty. She knew they both knew that. The best he could do was even the score. _This will take some time_, she thought as she drew her sword, but he stopped, seeming to focus on something over her shoulder. Before she could take advantage of his distraction, he hissed again at whatever he was looking at and looked properly at her once more, visibly fading. "Not now."

She nodded; she thought she understood, and decided to let him keep what remained of his dignity. Tempus was a father to her, but in this case… "This _did _drag on. Call on me at a better time, then."

He made as if to say something more, paused again, then seemed to come to a decision. "Keep the set. If you hate traitors _so _much you can play it without the dice."

"'Hate' is excessive." The closest she came to that was only in regard to the capricious ones, those without rhyme or reason, who changed sides easy as stepping over a line in dirt and back again. And, of course, those who reasoned out turning on _her. _

He picked up the dice, rattling them in a closed hand. He grinned at her _again_. "I'm the most loyal one you'll find in the lot. Think on _that_." He tossed the dice. They were bouncing off the board when he disappeared, presumably to his home plane.

He might not be the most loyal god of the drow, she decided, but he was almost certainly the least subtle.


	7. Shevarash, Erevan Ilesere: Falling Star

**Falling Star**

(Some vague goriness, death, general unhappiness)

_Among the fallen was the family of the archer-guard Shevarash, once a carefree hunter of the Elven Court. _

_-_On Shevarash, _Demihuman Deities_

_Among the elven powers, Eilistraee is only close with Erevan Ilesere. _

-On Eilistraee, _Demihuman Deities_

* * *

Shevarash knew better than to expect anything of Erevan Ilesere. That particular member of the Seldarine might prefer the disadvantaged, his favorite cousin told him, but Erevan had little favor to offer to those who leaned on it. His favorite cousin thought this quite reasonable, and so Shevarash agreed.

(There was not much competition insofar as Shevarash's favorite cousin. He had cousins in plenty, but not near as much fondness for even all the rest put together.

(That made it somehow worse)

Shevarash had no intention of leaning. His archery did well enough on its own, his wits were quick enough not to shame himself, and there was certainly no trouble with his carousing. Instead he gave praise, which came naturally and generously after the first drink or two.

(Some two hundred years later, on a long run underneath the High Moor, he realized he'd no idea what he'd praised Erevan _for_)

By midnight he would be sprawled against the trunk of an oak, joining in a wild song oft-interrupted by equally wild laughter. His sister always retained the vigor to keep on tumbling in the grass, with or without a partner. His cousin produced rings and brooches and gems that glimmered like stolen stars, told everyone to follow with their eyes as he tossed them toward the full moon, and reprimanded them with mock solemnity when the trinkets invariably vanished in midair - gone to Erevan in Arvandor, Shevarash supposed, or back to his cousin's pockets. Perhaps they were illusions gone to wherever illusions would go.

When he recognized his cousin only by the jeweled amulet that had served as his holy symbol for the tenday -

(Would that his cousin had protected himself as well as he protected his pretty things)

- when he found himself wishing he hadn't recognized what the drow had left of his sister, Shevarash knew that he'd known better to expect anything of Erevan Ilesere and he knew, too, that he'd done it anyway.

* * *

His cousin said vomiting was meant to purge the body of what troubled it. For days afterward he laughed, vomited, vomited laughter between oaths to Sehanine Moonbow and Solonor Thelandira and Fenmarel Mestarine and so on and so forth until he'd gone over all of the Seldarine except for his cousin's god.

His laughter was not such a great thing.

(Not next to the ones who'd clawed out their eyes to try to stop the sight of what pursued them into Reverie, next to the ones who rocked and shrieked like gibberlings)

His laughter didn't stop him doing his part -

(It was hard to imagine how the corpses he tended to would be any further desecrated by a bit of vomit)

- so they let him be.

His culminating oath was to Corellon Larethian, and by then he'd purged what he could of what troubled him; the words of the oath provided for the rest. The witnesses spoke as though swearing never to smile or laugh again -

(He said _until all drow are dead_, but anyone with sense at the time would hear that as _never_)

- was some kind of sacrifice. Shevarash knew that he couldn't sacrifice what he no longer possessed.

* * *

He heard Erevan before he saw him. His voice was light and easy as Shevarash expected, and a good deal more oblivious. Shevarash came up behind a tree and told himself he certainly wasn't hiding, even as he figured the best position among the spreading branches. What need was there to hide in Arvandor itself? What need to hide from one of the Seldarine - another of the Seldarine?

(It was discretion, that was all, mere courtesy)

He repeated this to himself as he maneuvered himself into the best position in question.

(No point in troubling the ever-laughing god of mischief with his sacrifice-that-wasn't)

"Ah," Erevan's voice rose, "no need to fret about him, Eilistraee. It'll work out. You'll see. Stay a while longer?"

Erevan had not stayed long during the introductions. Eilistraee had, out of necessity if nothing else, but she too had not stayed past the necessary negotiations.

(She was unnaturally tall, he remembered, especially compared to how most of the drow he'd fought had come up to no more than Shevarash's chin while they were still able to stand. Either she had shortened herself for the purpose of the conversation, or Erevan had stretched himself to join her; their obscured faces looked to be quite close, and Erevan's long fingers were tangling in her hair)

Now they drew apart. Erevan reached up with one hand - "Watch, now," he told her. "Don't even _blink_." Pointing at the night sky he repeated, "_Watch_."

Shevarash watched. Erevan twisted and tugged like picking a fruit, and then he was holding out to a drow goddess something that might well be a star.

(Or an offering, plucked from the middle of a celebration in his honor, presented to him by one of those priests of his that _hadn't _been butchered.

(A priest who expected nothing of him, and thus far needed nothing)

"Take it down to the Pits with you," said Erevan now and Shevarash could almost hear him smiling. "It'll bother her some, and maybe _he'll _even get nostalgic. Then he can maybe reconsider this whole muckup in time to not get pegged full of arrows by… you _know _that's not what I want." Frantic now, and over what? Some look on Eilistraee's unseen face? "I'm just saying with this new-"

(Sixteen score and ten years before the last swarm of soul spiders - that was how new it was.

(Time _would _blur up, wouldn't it? Erevan probably got his priests mixed up, too, quite understandable given all the thousands of years for them to live and die in, perfectly understandable given that Erevan Ilesere had never claimed to be a god of historians or a god to expect anything from including that he might remember one Mischiefmaker who told his young cousins of his god's caprice and was proud of it…)

Shevarash made no special effort toward discretion as he climbed from the tree. Erevan prattled on to Eilistraee, the frantic speech of a few moments previous quickly cast aside.

"When can we go?" he asked when he tracked down Fenmarel Mestarine. Because he was not unappreciative of Arvandor -

(It stood for the sort of thing he had to protect by standing guard at its outskirts. If those deeper in could stay always laughing and unknowing and never need what they'd not get, because of him, it would undoubtedly be worth it. Of course he knew it didn't work that way. How it did work was worth it all the same. It had to be)

- he quickly clarified, "When can I begin?"

"When can you continue, you mean." Fenmarel's look was not near as long and probing as it could have been. Fenmarel knew at least a piece of it - that knowing was why he had reached between the roots of the oak for Shevarash's body, replacing breath and blood and concentrating purpose into divinity. "We could go now."

Shevarash nodded, thanked him, and tried not to look at the stars.


	8. Gruumsh, Luthic: Net Gains

****

Net Gains

When it transpired that not only did Corellon Larethian have Eilistraee and Vhaeraun (perhaps Sehanine was his as well, depending on who you asked), but that Vhaeraun had managed to produce one of his own, Gruumsh cursed his wife. The head god of the fecund orcs being stuck with Bahgtru while his elven rival's progeny continued to mount was just _not on_, and he concluded that Luthic's womb was at fault.

Luthic hurriedly planted pieces of reasoning that eventually added up to "Look at what's _become _of his children." Gruumsh looked and laughed, while Luthic finally took a proper breath.


	9. Rogue Gods: Misfortune Comes in Quartets

****

Misfortune Comes in Quartets

(Crack, rampant amputation, kinda-spoilers for War of the Spider Queen and Avatar Series)

* * *

Mask was the first. He lost his leg. It being the first, no one took any notice besides that inherent to the event itself. That was still a good bit of notice. Mask got a prosthesis - two, actually, one extra for when he'd rather be missing an arm - and all was well.

Vhaeraun was the second. He lost his hand. He had the good luck not to have a chunk of his divine essence devoured by Kezef, so he grew himself another hand - muttering dire imprecations about his misbegotten sprog all the while - and all was well. Erevan Ilesere and Brandobaris began to crack jokes about it at that point, but their sight was narrow, the jokes confined to the pair already affected.

"Sometimes, I've found," said Brandobaris during a pranksters' gathering, "twins raised independent of each other will grow up with astounding coincidences in their life events. You think that has applications here?"

"Sure, Vhaeraun's a twin," said Tymora, sipping her drink and pretending not to notice Avachel drinking from the other end. "But he's not a twin to _Mask_. There's that theory gone."

Brandobaris pointed with Tymora's paper cocktail umbrella. "Erevan, _you _were there. Is there any possibility somebody switched the babies?"

* * *

After their merry band was revealed as the masterminds of the Pudding Rift Incident, Beshaba was even less happy with them than per usual - and apparently took even more extreme measures than per usual. Within what, in godly terms, might as well be called a tenday, Brandobaris stepped in a trap while on an excursion in Bane's realm. He got out of the trap easily, but left his foot behind as collateral.

"I thought Tymora gave you luck," said Erevan over drinks.

"She did," said Brandobaris, gazing ruefully at the stump. "I've still got the rest of the leg."

So Brandobaris was the third. He grew it back eventually, and all was well, but afterward squirmy fragments of worry began to burrow into Erevan's brain. He blamed Ilsensine.

* * *

Erevan sometimes wondered if Eilistraee wasn't using their spars to try and practice fighting her brother. He did have the same sort of weapons, short sword and long, and back in the day they'd had a similar way of leaping about and evading.

He didn't realize his lack of evasion until Avachel yelped from the sidelines. Eilistraee stopped short, gaping in horror. He wondered if it was supposed to be some kind of distraction gambit before he saw his arm lying in the grass between them, noticing idly that he didn't see his shoulder connected to it.

She screamed and grabbed his shoulder. He stared at the blood squirting between her fingers. "Er. Eilistraee?"

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry-"

"Eilistraee?"

"I can't imagine how-"

"I can. Those evil twins get you every time, and that's a life lesson. Now Eilistraee?"

"I didn't think it was _vorpal_…They're coming right now, they should be able to put it back -"

"Eilistraee!"

"What - what is it?"

"Promise me," said Erevan, "you're not going to go and swear off _swords _too." Then he passed out.


	10. Lolth, Selvetarm: Ingratitude

****

Ingratitude

(Twistiness, spoilers for _Sacrifice of the Widow_. Dialogue taken from the coda and somewhat elided)

* * *

Lolth had made up her mind to be merciful for once, with the Lady Penitent as her instrument. She'd seen how he sought death, how he flung himself into battle. It was a fitting gift for over a thousand years in her service. He might even thank her. Love her for it at the last. At the least, she'd expected some joy in his eyes.

Selvetarm's eyes were wide. "You can't –"

As if that would make it true. She stared back, nearly snarling at his fear. _The little ingrate. Just like his father._

"_Traitor_." She snapped off his head.


	11. Lathander, Eilistraee: Condolences

**Condolences**

(Referential trying-to-be-humor, oblique spoilers for War of the Spider Queen and the Twilight War)

* * *

Lathander stared down for a time at the paladin paraphernalia resting at the bottom of Lake Veladon before announcing to the planes at large, "That went well."

"So it did."

He turned to the goddess now standing beside him. "It did?"

"Yes," said the goddess – Eilistraee, he remembered, friend to Selune. "He could have for example killed his Lathanderite friends, broken an artifact of your faith that was entrusted to him, and sworn allegiance to Shar."

"Oh, he wouldn't have gone over to _Shar_," said Lathander. "That would be a bit silly of him, wouldn't it, given that… oh. Sorry."


	12. Cyric: Get Over It

**Get Over It**

(Spoilers for the Avatar Trilogy and the latest revelations in the Grand History of the Realms as disseminated on the internet, apologies if I conflict with the latter source, fuzzy but decidedly unfluffy thinking, offscreen death)

"_You desired godhood, control over your destiny, and great power," said Ao. "You will have only two of these – godhood and power – to exercise as you will in the Realm of the Dead. And all of the suffering in Toril will be yours as well, to cause and inflict as you wish. But you will never know contentment or happiness again." _

_Ao paused then and looked at Midnight. "But the thing you have desired most, Lord Cyric, will never come to pass…"_

- _The Avatar Trilogy: Waterdeep_, by Troy Denning

"_Love is a lie. Only hate endures."_

- Two of the Thirteen Truths of Shar, _The Twilight War: Shadowstorm, _by Paul S. Kemp

* * *

"It's over."

"It's over," says Cyric, because it is. "Over, over, over."

They took her away and now Kelemvor's on his knees cradling her, reaching toward her eyes wide and blue-white. Her hair is right, long and dark, but her eyes should be dark too, dark with crimson flecks. When they came in Cyric had been trying to put those flecks back in. Kelemvor's fingers slide her eyelids over his efforts.

When they came in, they'd bound him with Sune's silk sash. Lathander gives it radiance, Tyr gives it strength, but it's still a _sash_ wound around him and he laughs and laughs at the thought of it. Sune scowls; Cyric is always mucking up her affairs.

"It's impossible," says Kelemvor. "Impossible. Savras should have seen –" Savras is a grease stain on the floor of Dweomerheart. "He had to have had help."

"It was me," says Cyric. "It was _me_! You want proof? Here's your proof. It's over. It's over."

"Yes," says Mask, sticking his head out from a shadow on the wall. "You said that." Tyr gives him a sharp look.

Her hands were raised and he can see the slashes of his not-Godsbane blade across them. That's how he knows it was him. "I did it, it's done, it's over."

"No one else?" says Tyr, but of course Tyr is inclined to look to him first, Tyr and Sune and Helm are the ones he's mucked up most recently. Helm would be here too, but for the obvious.

"It was _me_," says Cyric. "Me. Me! It's over now, over, and I did it, it was me, I plead guilty. Oh, don't look so sour, Lady Firehair, Love is a lie, and guess what _I _am, I know _all_ about love, it's a lie. Prince of Lies, and love is a lie, you ought to be grateful I haven't dismissed you yet."

Mask and Lathander look at one another. Kelemvor's head is lowered and Cyric thinks there are tears, more tears. They look delectable. She's falling apart now, and the closer Kelemvor holds her the faster she goes.

Cyric says, "I plead guilty to the murder of the Harlot."

"Of _Mystra_," says Sune.

"No, of Midnight of Deepingdale. Ariel Manx." Kelemvor's head snaps up. Kelemvor's eyes are dry. "It was a beautiful name. I said so. Secrets are always safe between friends, yes? She counted me her friend. Oh, she didn't tell you of _that, _did she, Kel? She told me. Secrets between friends. You had to buy it from her, I remember that. You forced it from her, you said she had to tell you after we met Elminster though Elminster didn't let us get in a word edgewise before teleporting away." Does Elminster hear this? Cyric hopes he's already combusted, as some pleasant side effect. "Well, it's over with now. You never deserved Ariel. You put a price on everything. You would have watched the Dalesmen kill her. For killing that senile archmage who didn't even have the decency to be _dead_. You would have let them kill her."

Kelemvor gets to his feet as the last bits of Ariel fall through his fingers, "I didn't kill her _now_."

"But it's over now! No more of that. It's over. I have what I wanted, I wanted it, I got it, it's over!"

Sune puts a hand on Kelemvor's shoulder. Mask gives Cyric the oddest look before returning his gaze to Lathander. Tyr pronounces judgment.

Cyric folds to his knees, looking at the floor, but she is entirely gone by now. "Perhaps he truly does not remember," he hears Lathander say. "Given her nature…"

Mask says, "She _talks _of forgetfulness a good bit…."

"And it's the first of her thirteen so-called truths," says Lathander. "Possibly a coincidence in phrasing, but…"

"Ye-es," says Sune, "isn't it…"

It's over. It's over. It's over and Cyric laughs in the face of it. He has what he wanted.

"Stand back –"

Kelemvor steps back, shrugging his shoulder out from under Sune's hand. Mask melts back into the shadow. Lathander and Tyr lift Cyric between them. Sune lifts her hands, working what magic she can even while the Weave unravels. Her hands can't compare to Ariel's.

He has what he wanted. Shouldn't that please him?

Mask steps out of the shadow again. "Keep your distance," says Tyr.

"I'm keeping it, I'm keeping it. It just occurred to me. You have such a great memory," he says to Cyric, "don't you remember what Ao told you on Mount Waterdeep? Didn't we all hear that? All right, Kelemvor, maybe not _you_, but the rest of us ought to. Don't you remember?"

He waits for Lathander to burn him to ash with sun's fire. For Tyr to take his head. For Sune to tighten her sash like a great snake.

"_I _was there. I heard." Mask shakes his head. "Cyric, Cyric, it will _never _be over for you."


	13. Shar and Targus, Jergal: Courtship

**Courtship**

(Implications)

_He admired the ineffable evil and seductive Power, (sic) grace of Shar and had formally courted her on several occasions…_

- On Jergal, _Netheril: Empire of Magic_

_He was totally in smitten with Shar, who he believed to be the most beautiful and gracious being to have ever existed. _

- On Targus (later known as Garagos), _Netheril: Empire of Magic_

* * *

One night Jergal, as the Lord of the End of Everything, brought Shar dead flowers in an aesthetic geometrical arrangement, as well as a lengthy dirge in iambic which she sang for him. The next night Targus, as the Lord of War, brought Shar six brace of the heads of her faith's enemies. Surreptitiously, she checked if Selune's head was among them. It wasn't, of course. She hadn't got that far with him yet.

She looked back to him. "Oh, you shouldn't have." Targus beamed at her, undried blood dripping from his body.

After he departed, singing something distinctly undirgely, there were innumerable little stains on her dark silks.


	14. Dates from the Nine Hells

**Dates from the Nine Hells**

"_I _believe in peace," said Bane, trying to figure out how to get the damask-clothed table in the Cynosure restaurant to accommodate his armored arms. "I simply believe that to accomplish _true _peace one needs firm application of violence beforehand."

Eldath stared at him a long moment before raising one delicate hand. "Check, please."

* * *

Mask smirked. "Oh, I see that look on your face." He brandished a handful of gold coin as the first course of nineteen arrived. "No worries. I have money."

"Money," said Waukeen, "which you just slipped from my purse."

Mask sniffed. "There's no need to nitpick."


	15. Vhaeraun, Mask: Date from the Demonweb

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Apologies for the phantom update earlier, if you noticed. The site stripped out the "smart quotes" and dashes and I did some flailing and scrambling.

* * *

**Date from the Demonweb**

(Language, twisted implications, untwisted implications)

_In the drow city of Menzoberranzan, in the Underdark beneath the North where Lolth - or Lloth, as she is known there - appeared during the Time of Troubles, the Spider Queen has allowed rumors to spread of a new demipower of chaos and assassins, Zinzerena the Hunted. While Zinzerena was once a legendary drow assassin and later an emerging demipower of a world other than Abeir-Toril, the Spider Queen recently slew Zinzerena - or at least banished her influence from the Realms - and assumed her aspect._

- On Lolth, _Demihuman Deities_

_Zinzerena (zin-zuh-RAY-nuh) is a rebellious heroine venerated by the dissidents and outcasts of drow society. She appears as a cloaked and masked drow rogue who moves with astounding agility._

- On Zinzerena, _Living Greyhawk: The Vault of the Drow, Dragon 298_

* * *

_Circa 1370 DR_

"So," asked Mask after what seemed like a tenday of enthusing, "is she pretty?"

Vhaeraun blinked and frowned at him. "There's no need to be shallow. What does it matter if she is?"

Mask swirled his drink in the glass. "She isn't? And 'shallow' is an odd word coming from you."

"As a matter of fact, she had a mask on." Vhaeraun sniffed. "A full mask. And awareness of my own good looks is not 'shallow,' it's common sense. I am perfectly aware that attractive people can still be shallow cloud-headed twits. But," he added reflectively, "She does have nice legs."

Mask was reminded again of the absence of one of his own, concealed by the overhang of the bar counter and the perhaps slightly excessive shadow it cast.

"It's destiny," Vhaeraun declared. His own drink had gone untouched as he chattered on about the mortalborn from Greyhawk. "The cloak, the mask, the egalitarian ideology... did I mention she tricked Keptolo into sponsoring her for ascension, that miserable doormat?"

"Five times now."

Vhaeraun sighed the sigh of the put-upon and perpetually oppressed. "At least you're listening. Shar is just a bottomless pit of pessimism about this. Of course, it's her job, so I can't really complain."

"I suppose not. But considering the harem she's collected, pessimism seems to work for her."

* * *

Once the door shut behind him, he greeted her with "Vhaeraun has a girlfriend."

He had to give Sharess credit. She couldn't slip in anywhere like he could, but she got into places all the same. As he watched she summoned new earrings into her ears to replace the ones she'd bribed his petitioners with. When he'd come in she was lounging on a chaise, sipping wine and waiting for him. "Vhaeraun this, Vhaeraun that. You should fuck him and get it out of your system."

"Is that your advice for everything, my lady?"

"Well, not for everything. For one thing, _I _wouldn't. The first time was enough."

He flipped through the air and landed perched atop the chaise. "Fair enough."

Sharess looked up at him and smiled lazily. "Ooh, let me guess."

"Go ahead."

"Zinzerena."

Mask recalled another familiar face in the Cynosure tavern. "Brandobaris told Tymora and Tymora told you, I take it?"

She laughed, running a hand along his boot. "You take it right. Though Tymora _asked _me to guess, and I guessed aright the first time. She's so much like a twin of his that I thought he would either fall hard or hate her like he does his actual twin. My second guess was going to be, well, _her_."

"Apparently _she's_ unenthusiastic," said Mask. "Perhaps she's jealous."

"Anyway, did you want to try your hand at the Splits now? I mean that literally. I think we can do an Inverted Split if you have the upper body control-"

* * *

Tonight Vhaeraun had gold hair, insisted on paying for everyone's drinks (even Erevan Ilesere's drinks; Erevan was drunk enough by this time to take the windfall in stride), and as if this wasn't enough confided to Mask that he had another rendezvous set up. He refused to say when or where, and responded with laughter to Mask's attempts to tease it out of him (he was, after all, mildly interested in seeing if the fuss over Zinzerena was at all justified), saying "Don't worry, I'll cut you in on the next heist." Then he was making his excuses and jumping out through a shadow, and Mask thought that he was probably going to meet with Zinzerena now, a conclusion that was shelved for a while as seconds afterward Kiaransalee gated in screaming, in essence, that someone had run off with her good silverware and heads were going to roll_. _

* * *

That conclusion proved to be the correct one. Kiaransalee left in pursuit, and some time later Mask was entertaining himself in another tavern by listening to a thoroughly soused Erevan discuss mortal relations.

"She kicked me in the face and walked out," Erevan told him, and the tavern at large. "And it was just a little mistake, I mean, could've happened to anyone. Don't tell me _she _never got her names mixed up, I mean, you're not thinking too clearly at a time like that! And saying _Sehanine _at a time like that is actually kind of a _compliment_, isn't it? She didn't care about me calling her little Moonbow, did she? Come on, I mean -"

The door slammed open and Vhaeraun entered in a swirl of red hair and black velvet, the latter of which proceeded to catch on the doorknob. A moment's cursing and struggle followed, whereupon he stormed to the bar and slammed down coins and gave his order through grit teeth.

"Oh dear," Mask said, joining him at the bar. "Take a dip in the Far Realm? You look like you've seen an atropal."

Vhaeraun made another gritty sort of noise in his throat and downed his drink, immediately holding up a hand to signal for another. He was halfway through his third glass before finally turning to Mask and croaking "I forget, did you ever have a family?"

"No comment."

Vhaeraun finished off the glass. Signaled. "Her mask came off."

"Not so pretty after all?"

"She didn't even change her face. Maybe she wasn't expecting it. Or maybe - maybe she wanted me to find out. The _bitch_."

Mask mentally reviewed Vhaeraun's usual insults of choice as applied to various individuals. He feigned oblivion. "Oh dear, not Sharess?"

"If _only _it were Sharess." Another glass. "I cannot fucking believe I thought she had nice legs."

"Well, they're your legs too, aren't they?" Mask ventured. "In a manner of speaking."

Vhaeraun groaned. Mask's findings were confirmed.

* * *

It wasn't long before Vhaeraun was making plans for a Greyhawk vacation. Shar remained pessimistic as ever. Mask tried out various forms and positions with Sharess and mentally assembled his proposal for a foursome. A threesome if Sharess finally drew the line there, a plain twosome if the real Zinzerena didn't measure up.


End file.
